ciggie prices

Not high enough. You heard me. NOT HIGH ENOUGH.

I'm probably gonna get killed, but I'm among the few who thinks that cigarette prices should be hiked up more. RM6.50 per pack of 20s is like, chup change. Especially due to the reason that the currenly "high" price was raised little by little over the years.

If we really wanted to stop people from smoking, or at least to lessen smokers and to discourage new smokers, raising the price so slowly is not gonna work. Why? Smokers are gonna get used to the current price after a few months, and when the price is raised agian the next time, they won't feel that it's been raised that much.

Take one of my smoker friends for example. 2 months before the price hike, he expected it to happen and stocked up on cartons and cartons of Dunhill. According to him, it's gonna last him and his dad til sometime next January. Another smoker friend of mine actually cut down on drinks to buy cigarettes. Usually, he'll be paying RM1.50++ for Coke or kopi-ais. Now he's paying 30 sen for iced water or iced tea. Another one just outright said that it doesn't matter cos she's still gonna stick to smoking, blaming work-life pressure and hailing cigarettes as the almighty anti-depressant. I clearly don't see the point of that.

What I do see are all the bad consequences of smoking. The black, shriveled lungs. Bad breath. Burning money. Second hand smoke for everyone around you. And the list goes on and on. Another thing is the smell it leaves on your clothesand hair, especially when you just came out of some poorly ventilated area packed with smokers.

So, to really stop people from smoking, the price should've been hiked around, let's say, 300% at one go. Which would result in about RM16++ for a pack of 20s. Now THAT would seriously cut down the number of smokers.

Of course, that all just wishful thinking. There's no business like tobacco, and the government's earning a lot under the table from it anyway. If I had a digicam, I'd take a picture of all the white unmarked vans and Marlboro pickup trucks jamming the street around here every morning, just to pick up their deliveries to send to places all around Ipoh. That's on helluva sight.